Estelle by Scott Pickett (“ESP”) is a fine dining, omakase-only new eatery by the guy behind the popular St. Crispin and Estelle Bistro. While the fine modern-Australian cuisine was good, we came on opening night on July 17 when the service was less than stellar and they had a quirky exhaust system. I believe they should be able to resolve these teething problems but if not, be in for a slightly longer evening than expected and wear clothes you don’t mind smelling of food. Overall, I think ESP is definitely worth a try.
Our dinner started out fine enough. We were seated near the window and I had a great view of the restaurant with its open kitchen. Just like St. Crispin, there’s a good list of cocktails and I enjoyed my Danish Gin Fizz. However, we did have initial signs of service issues when a couple of the drinks orders took an inexplicable amount of time to come to the table. We suspect they forgot the order and only realised after we reminded them – especially since we were early and the restaurant was not even half full.
The meal started with three good starters: Cod Roe and Potato Souffle, Jerusalem Artichoke and Saltbush, and Parmesan and Lemon Myrtle. Of the three, I liked the Cod Roe and Potato Souffle best, being surprisingly light, airy and delicate but tasty.
We then moved onto four mains: a vegetable consisting of onion and truffle, two seafood – mud crab followed by kingfish, and then veal. I liked all the mains except that the service problems soured the experience a bit. Our fish was cold by the time it came to the table. A shame since my kingfish was beautifully cooked. There had been quite a wait before the dishes were cleared from our table between some of the courses. I believe this is more a reflection of some new staff not being so “with it” as I noticed a bit of inefficiency in a couple of the wait staff.
The quirky exhaust system probably also added to a strained experience on the first night. Once on, the restaurant cooled down markedly and once off, the restaurant got hot. I suspect they didn’t leave the exhaust system on all evening because of this dynamic between the restaurant’s heating system. Unfortunately it was a particularly cold night so the trade-off was especially telling. My host is an architect and pointed out the issue with the exhaust to the head waiter but was rebuffed. I’ll put it down to the stress of the evening for the service staff but it was fairly evident that there is a design flaw so being in denial doesn’t help.
Anyway, by the time dessert rolled around, we’d been in the restaurant for about three hours. Good thing we were all in a relaxed mood and didn’t have pressing issues at home or elsewhere. The dessert was good and luckily there was no issue with this being served cold.
After the two main desserts, we thought we were done and asked for the bill. We had by then, completed our coffees as well. Then the petit fours showed up – I believe it was the petit fours although these two last items were also on the menu. We had forgotten about these in our desire to leave after the long meal. Good thing they remembered as the Lemon Aspen Doughnut was good. Despite some of the stresses of the evening, I will return to ESP – I thought the food was well plated, creative but not overdone, and the overall meal was well balanced. My host was less forgiving declaring the place a disaster. Since I won’t be back in Melbourne until late November, I think this should be enough time for the quirks to be resolved.
ESP website: http://estellebysp.com
